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Deepthi Subbu: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 298; Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:09 am; Thanked: 2 times; Followed by:1 members

word problems

by Deepthi Subbu » Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:54 am

A sales manager must select a team of either three or of four salespeople to deliver a presentation to a prospective client. How many different teams can she select?

(1) The team will comprise either 1/8 or 1/6 of the total number of salespeople, depending on the size of the team.

(2) It is suspected that 20 salespeople will NOT be selected to be part of this team.

OA
A

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Data Sufficiency | Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:54 am

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Anurag@Gurome: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3835; Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 10:00 pm; Location: Milpitas, CA; Thanked: 1854 times; Followed by:523 members; GMAT Score:770

by Anurag@Gurome » Sun Jan 16, 2011 1:24 am

Deepthi Subbu wrote:A sales manager must select a team of either three or of four salespeople to deliver a presentation to a prospective client. How many different teams can she select?

(1) The team will comprise either 1/8 or 1/6 of the total number of salespeople, depending on the size of the team.
(2) It is suspected that 20 salespeople will NOT be selected to be part of this team.

Say, total number of salespeople is S.
Numbers of different teams = (Numbers of different teams with three salespeople) + (Numbers of different teams with four salespeople) = SC3 + SC4

Thus if we can find the total number of salespeople, i.e. S, we can find the number of teams.

Statement 1: The team will comprise either 1/8 or 1/6 of the total number of salespeople, depending on the size of the team. Therefore, if the team contains three salespeople, then it is comprised of 1/8 of the total number of salespeople. Hence, total number of salespeople = 3*8 = 24. This also accordance with other information, i.e. 4*6 is also equal to 24. As we know S, we can determine the number of different teams.

Sufficient

Statement 2: It is suspected that 20 salespeople will NOT be selected to be part of this team. This is not sufficient to answer the question as we cannot determine the total number of salespeople from this information.

Not sufficient

The correct answer is A.

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arora007: Community Manager; Posts: 1048; Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:26 am; Location: India; Thanked: 51 times; Followed by:27 members; GMAT Score:670

by arora007 » Sun Jan 16, 2011 1:34 am

1/8 or 1/6 as per (1) would mean with 3 or 4 ppl crack team selected for prospective cleint, 24 member current sales team

now its easy to take probability of selecting 3 people
add it to
now its easy to take probability of selecting 4 people

SUFFICIENT

as per 2, we are not sure how many people are there in the current team 23 or 24.
we cannot give a definitive figure without knowing the exact number of ppl in the current team...

ans should be A.

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ankur.agrawal: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 261; Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 8:37 pm; Location: Varanasi; Thanked: 11 times; Followed by:3 members

by ankur.agrawal » Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:58 am

Anurag@Gurome wrote:
Deepthi Subbu wrote:A sales manager must select a team of either three or of four salespeople to deliver a presentation to a prospective client. How many different teams can she select?

(1) The team will comprise either 1/8 or 1/6 of the total number of salespeople, depending on the size of the team.
(2) It is suspected that 20 salespeople will NOT be selected to be part of this team.
Say, total number of salespeople is S.
Numbers of different teams = (Numbers of different teams with three salespeople) + (Numbers of different teams with four salespeople) = SC3 + SC4

Thus if we can find the total number of salespeople, i.e. S, we can find the number of teams.

Statement 1: The team will comprise either 1/8 or 1/6 of the total number of salespeople, depending on the size of the team. Therefore, if the team contains three salespeople, then it is comprised of 1/8 of the total number of salespeople. Hence, total number of salespeople = 3*8 = 24. This also accordance with other information, i.e. 4*6 is also equal to 24. As we know S, we can determine the number of different teams.

Sufficient

Statement 2: It is suspected that 20 salespeople will NOT be selected to be part of this team. This is not sufficient to answer the question as we cannot determine the total number of salespeople from this information.

Not sufficient

The correct answer is A.[/quote

Sorry cud not grasp the statement in bold. Can u pls simplify/ dig a little.

Apology for asking smalll doubts.

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Anurag@Gurome: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3835; Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 10:00 pm; Location: Milpitas, CA; Thanked: 1854 times; Followed by:523 members; GMAT Score:770

by Anurag@Gurome » Sun Jan 16, 2011 5:00 am

ankur.agrawal wrote:Sorry cud not grasp the statement in bold. Can u pls simplify/ dig a little.

I assume by "statement in bold" you mean (Numbers of different teams with three salespeople) + (Numbers of different teams with four salespeople) = SC3 + SC4.

I have used the combination formula to simplify the expression for possible number of different teams. The formula is : The number of different selections r objects out of n objects is given by nCr = n!/[(n - r)!*r!]

Hence number of different teams with 3 salespeople = Number of different selections of 3 salespeople out of S salespeople = SC3

Similarly number of different teams with 4 salespeople = SC4

If you are not familiar with this formula, I suggest you to go through any standard material on Permutation-Combination.